Weight Transfer...Part of the Swing or Preparation?

[Shawn]

Pujols does many things with the stride, and after looking at many at bats sometimes this changes from at bat to at bat.

There are three things you will see Pujols do with the stride, one is a normal short stride, two is to move the foot a few inches (2-5 inches) and have the tip of the toe touching the ground early, and three is a perfect no stride.

If you watched Pujols in the HR derby, they made a big deal of him going to a knee/leg lift. Pujols has said he used the leg/knee lift up through the minor leagues, so it wasn't something new he just tried.

 

[Shawn]

If you go by Hitting - Rotational Hitting - Mike Epstein Rotational Hitting, there is a video that talks about this a little bit.

A pretty decent video on the sunject.

 

[HittingGuru]

balancd approach

In my honest opinion staying balanced with opposing forces creates the quickest and most powerfull swings. This is a contradiction in a way because you must start back before going forward,but the more balanced this is achieved, will allow the batter to keep the head still throughout the swing.

 

[ssarge]

In my honest opinion staying balanced with opposing forces creates the quickest and most powerfull swings. This is a contradiction in a way because you must start back before going forward,but the more balanced this is achieved, will allow the batter to keep the head still throughout the swing.

Balance is an interesting thing in the context of the swing. A hitter who strides has ALL her weight on the rear foot. Elite hitters often rollup onto the toes of the back foot before contact. Ballet-like. SOmetimes, they even lift the back foot. All of the weight is on the front foot when this happens. After a solid swing and a miss, or even after contact, the rear foot often steps across the plate, because there is no weight on it (other hitters dradually return weight to the back foot in the follow through, but some step across the plate).

Are these hitters "balanced?"

You bet, in the context of an elite swing.

But it doesn;t sound balanced by a straight dictionary definition, and I wonder if it is the kind of "balance" being advocated by those who stress it?

I'll bet not, in many cases. But it IS how elite hitters generally balance themselves.

Regards,

Scott

 

[HittingGuru]

I can sort of see where you are coming from. but the more balanced a hitter becomes the more stable is the computer that must do the calculations on a moving pitch. Which is critical in helping the batter achieve greater success at the plate.pujols swing - Google Videos

 

[Mark H]

If by more balanced you mean more controlled and coordinated with less unnecessary or unproductive movement, then yeah, I agree.

 

[HittingGuru]

I see balanced as the hips rotating on a centerline axis with the front side firming up as an opposing force pushing back at the rotating hip thus generating torso or oblique torq accelerating bat speed in the beginning of the swing but not being the sole propellant of bat speed once the foundation is set the second bat head accellerant is applied by the top hand applying linear forces on the ball untill extension is achieved . These are merely my observations through years of study. For right now I am sticking with it since it appears to work extremely well. I am here to pick you guys brains of as much knowledge I can gain. Always the student. Thanks for the replies

 

[Mark H]

Well there's several threads of discussion in there much of which depends on your definitions of terms but the first question that comes up is, do I have to be balanced to do all those things - balanced defined as Webster might define it.

 

[HittingGuru]

My observations and terms will be very different. Since I have studied this on my own without much input from others. Back to your question the answer is a big NO. But is the hitter on average going to perform better with a bouncing head?

 

[Mark H]

I'm unaware of anyone advocating a bouncing head.